'Resident Evil' Producer Developing 'The Long Dark' Film

Jeremy Bolt is adapting the Hinterland video game, which has already sold 1.3 million copies ahead of its release Tuesday.

The acclaimed survival videogame The Long Dark is ready to jump to the big screen.

Resident Evil producer Jeremy Bolt has partnered with videogame studio Hinterland for a live-action film adaptation of the game, which has hints of properties such as The Walking Dead and The Road.

The game has already sold 1.3 million copies ahead of its official PlayStation 4 release Tuesday, and has been building buzz for several years after an alpha version was released to ravenous fans.

"My goal with Hinterland — starting with T​he Long Dark​ — has always been to create original entertainment properties that could span multiple mediums, exploiting the storytelling potential of each form," Raphael van Lierop, founder and creative director at Hinterland, said Monday in a statement. “Partnering with Jeremy on this project is the first step in achieving that vision of true cross-platform storytelling in the world of T​he Long Dark.​"

The post-apocalyptic videogame centers on bush pilot Will Mackenzie and Dr. Astrid Greenwood, with the pair becoming stranded in the wilderness of Northern Canada following a geomagnetic disaster. As they search for each other, Astrid and Mackenzie come to terms with the ways the world around them has changed due to an aurorae in the sky.

“I first reached out to Raphael, as a fan of The Long Dark," said Bolt. “I was immediately taken by the game’s stunningly immersive landscapes, eerily solitary and realistic nature; it is an existential tale of moral, emotional and physical endurance with strong characters to build on; it is also a mystery. It is an honor to try to do justice to it on film.”

To give fans a taste of what the Long Dark film will look like, Hinterland has produced Elegy, a five-minute short film featuring Oscar winner Christopher Plummer and directed by Jared Pelletier. Hinterland's van Lierop wrote the short.

“I describe E​legy​ as a visual poem," said van Lierop. “Jared’s passion for the source material is evident — he really connected with The Long Dark’s artistic sensibilities, and the game’s unique sense of identity within its own fiction. I think E​legy​ stands as an example of the level of quality and the overall tone I’d like to deliver in t​he Long Dark​ film."